UV spot curing lamps are well known in the prior art for curing various curable materials and compounds, such as adhesives. UV spot curing systems are used in various applications including the curing of industrial sealants for potting electronics, bonding plastics in the medical industry and the curing of dental filling materials, amongst other applications. At times, it is desired to control the amount of UV energy that is irradiated upon a substance. For example, a photo-polymerizable adhesive may require varying degrees of UV energy intensity to achieve desired final polymer properties including adhesion to a substrate and shrinkage.
It has been known to place a rotating template in alignment with a UV lamp to vary UV energy intensity, where the template is formed with a plurality of discrete holes, each hole having a different dimension. In this manner, the intensity of the applied UV energy is controlled, both by the size of the holes as well as the spacing in-between. As is readily appreciated, the template portions between the holes will shield a material from the UV energy, thereby, resulting in discontinuous UV energy applications. It has, however, been found that further enhanced control over the intensity of UV energy application is desired.